Holy Week Evening Prayer

First Lesson
Lamentations 2:10, 13-19
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and
keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have
girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang
down their heads to the ground.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall
I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal
to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?
for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and
they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity;
but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.15 All
that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their
head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that
men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they
hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up:
certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found,
we have seen it.
17 The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled
his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown
down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to
rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of
Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself
no rest: let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord:
lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children,
that faint for hunger in the top of every street.

Second Lesson
John 15:17-27
17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.18 If
the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated
you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but
because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of
the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not
greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will
also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep
yours also.
21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake,
because they know not him that sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin:
but now they have no cloak for their sin.
23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man
did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated
both me and my Father.
25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled
that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you
from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from
the Father, he shall testify of me:
27 And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with
me from the beginning.